The India vs England Test series hangs in balance. Tied at 1-1, Ben Stokes’ bazballers will take on Rohit Sharma‘s India at the Rajkot Stadium on February 15. With Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, and Jack Leach out of the IND vs ENG 3rd Test, the match will be a test of the character and bench strengths of both teams.
Having already seen England’s aggressive approach work on ‘balanced’ Indian pitches, it will be a spectacle to watch how their tactic unfolds in the newly renamed Saurashtra Cricket Stadium. Ahead of the Day 1 action, check out the detailed pitch report for Rajkot Stadium:
Rajkot Stadium Pitch Report: IND vs IND 3rd Test
The pitch at Rajkot Stadium is batting-friendly. Similar to the last two pitches in the India vs England Test series, the surface in Rajkot will allow batters to put big runs on the board.
Unlike Vizag, we can see bowlers struggle in Saurashtra. The last Test match played here happened in 2018, and therefore taking that into account might not work. However, in the last first-class match played here, we saw just 17 wickets fall in 4 days.
The team batting first scored 578 runs for the loss of just four wickets, and the third innings saw the team put up more than 300 on the board with just three wickets falling.
The average first-inning score here is 593, illustrating that the best time to bat here is in the first inning. No team has ever chased down a total here, indicating the difficulty of batting last here.
The last Test match played at Rajkot Stadium was in 2018. Back then, the pitch in Saurashtra used to be batting friendly, and the trend has continued in the Ranji Trophy as well. Given how the past two days in Hyderabad and Vizag have played, one can expect the ball to spin more as we approach Day 3, while the first two days should help batters more than bowlers.
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